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First, the good news. The other Campbell Award (Yes, for forty years there have been TWO major awards named after that fucker, and yes, it has always been confusing) is also getting its name changed. When the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas decides what name they want their award formerly known as the "John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science-fiction novel of the year" to be known as, they will announce it. They have already renamed their yearly conference from the Campbell Conference to the Gunn Center Conference.
John Scalzi has some interesting comments on the whole thing, and I think this is the most notable and important bit of his post:
On to the Bad News.
The Tiptree Award is remaining the Tiptree Award, at least for now.
James Tiptree, Jr. was the pen name of Alice Sheldon, one of the greatest female SF/F writers of the early 20th Century. More than a pen name, Tiptree was a persona. Besides writing many great classics, Sheldon was an active participant in the SF/F community for decades, as James. Sheldon carried on many friendships entirely via letter, and was by the 1970s one of the Great Old Men of the genre. (Unsurprisingly, most of Tiptree's work explored gender and the social construction of identity.) It was a huge shock when, in the 1970s, it was revealed that James was Alice. Given both Tiptree's body of work and double life, it was an appropriate name for an award encouraging the exploration and expansion of gender.
The problem is that Sheldon/Tiptree killed both her disabled husband and herself in a murder-suicide in 1987. Everyone who knew them believed it was a mutual decision, and yet, it was still a pretty terrible thing to do. Especially because "well, he's disabled and old and if she can't care for him he'd be better off dead" seems to have been a large part of why they finally did it after a decade of talking and thinking about it. After some deliberation, the Tiptree Motherboard has decided to keep the name as it is, at least for now. They lay out their reasons, many of which I agree with, here. (Warnings for talk about suicide, depression, and some ableism.) File 770 also has some interesting discussion in the comments, including by at least one person who was fairly close with Alice.
And I'm torn. Because on the one hand, Tiptree's writing explored and foregrounded themes that almost nobody else was exploring at the time (certainly nobody else with such focus and consistency). And (unlike Campbell's fascism, which had a DIRECT and OBVIOUS affect on both his work and the genre as a whole), Sheldon's last horrifying act was not directly connected with Tiptree's art, except insofar as the sense of having been trapped with no way out led both to the murder/suicide and shaped Tiptree's work. Tiptree's writings are not notably more ableist than the genre as a whole, nor do they glorify or advocate for the sort of act which was Sheldon's last. It is possible to separate out the work from the evil, because the work did not advocate for or position the evil as good; the evil was, by and large, not present in the work. This is in direct contrast to Campbell, who actively used his work and his position to advocate for all of the evil in his head. You can't separate out Campbell's evil from his work because he made them intertwine so deeply--he did that, he chose that. Tiptree/Sheldon made a different choice, and so it is possible to make a separation between the work and the evil they did.
But how great a separation do we want to make? How much is good or reasonable? Do we want to name this award after a murderer? The Tiptree Motherboard make a case that it wasn't murder because Huntington Sheldon, Alice's husband, wanted to die, so that makes everything alright enough to keep the name. Here's my response, which I emailed to them:
I really don't know what the answer is.
John Scalzi has some interesting comments on the whole thing, and I think this is the most notable and important bit of his post:
Campbell is and will always be part of science fiction’s history. But history isn’t static, even if the facts of history stay the same. Anyone notable enough to be part of the historical record will find themselves the subject of reassessment, for however long they grace history’s record. It is, weirdly, a privilege not many people get. Campbell was never guaranteed a pedestal, or an award, or a conference in his name, even if he got them for a while. He was never guaranteed to keep them. No one is.
On to the Bad News.
The Tiptree Award is remaining the Tiptree Award, at least for now.
James Tiptree, Jr. was the pen name of Alice Sheldon, one of the greatest female SF/F writers of the early 20th Century. More than a pen name, Tiptree was a persona. Besides writing many great classics, Sheldon was an active participant in the SF/F community for decades, as James. Sheldon carried on many friendships entirely via letter, and was by the 1970s one of the Great Old Men of the genre. (Unsurprisingly, most of Tiptree's work explored gender and the social construction of identity.) It was a huge shock when, in the 1970s, it was revealed that James was Alice. Given both Tiptree's body of work and double life, it was an appropriate name for an award encouraging the exploration and expansion of gender.
The problem is that Sheldon/Tiptree killed both her disabled husband and herself in a murder-suicide in 1987. Everyone who knew them believed it was a mutual decision, and yet, it was still a pretty terrible thing to do. Especially because "well, he's disabled and old and if she can't care for him he'd be better off dead" seems to have been a large part of why they finally did it after a decade of talking and thinking about it. After some deliberation, the Tiptree Motherboard has decided to keep the name as it is, at least for now. They lay out their reasons, many of which I agree with, here. (Warnings for talk about suicide, depression, and some ableism.) File 770 also has some interesting discussion in the comments, including by at least one person who was fairly close with Alice.
And I'm torn. Because on the one hand, Tiptree's writing explored and foregrounded themes that almost nobody else was exploring at the time (certainly nobody else with such focus and consistency). And (unlike Campbell's fascism, which had a DIRECT and OBVIOUS affect on both his work and the genre as a whole), Sheldon's last horrifying act was not directly connected with Tiptree's art, except insofar as the sense of having been trapped with no way out led both to the murder/suicide and shaped Tiptree's work. Tiptree's writings are not notably more ableist than the genre as a whole, nor do they glorify or advocate for the sort of act which was Sheldon's last. It is possible to separate out the work from the evil, because the work did not advocate for or position the evil as good; the evil was, by and large, not present in the work. This is in direct contrast to Campbell, who actively used his work and his position to advocate for all of the evil in his head. You can't separate out Campbell's evil from his work because he made them intertwine so deeply--he did that, he chose that. Tiptree/Sheldon made a different choice, and so it is possible to make a separation between the work and the evil they did.
But how great a separation do we want to make? How much is good or reasonable? Do we want to name this award after a murderer? The Tiptree Motherboard make a case that it wasn't murder because Huntington Sheldon, Alice's husband, wanted to die, so that makes everything alright enough to keep the name. Here's my response, which I emailed to them:
As a person with a disability, there is one aspect of your understanding of Huntington's last days that is a gigantic, glaring problem, for two reasons, neither of which you seem to have considered. And the aspect is this: did he, or did he not, wish to die? For you, this is an important point (and you may well be correct on it). I don't believe that it matters, for two reasons.
First, a desire to die is not rational. It is a mental illness. It is part of depression. If a healthy person desires to die, we get them help. If they kill themselves, it is seen as a great tragedy. But when a disabled person is depressed, oh, of course, what could be more natural! Of course they want to kill themselves! Of course they need help ... but we are quicker to offer help to end their life than we are to offer assistance towards a better quality of life and the sort of therapy and medication that might help them be happy. Why is a disabled person's life less worthy than an abled person's? You may have considered this, but your statement certainly doesn't reflect any such consideration. He wanted to die, so his wife can be excused for making it happen. It fits so well into the common narrative of disability and death. It's even used in cases where we know for a certainty that the murder victim did not want to die ... because even in cases where the victim left a ton of evidence that they were happy and wanted to live, people will ignore it because they believe that disabled people must and should be miserable. Of course they must have wanted to die. So therefore the murderer can be excused for having killed them. Regardless of what resources were available to help the couple in 1987 (or in the decade leading up to that during which everybody seems to have known they were depressed and possibly suicidal and nobody did much), we live now in a world with much greater resources to help and yet people still kill disabled people using this as the reasoning. Regardless of whether or not you rename the award, PLEASE reframe the discussion so that you are not contributing to this perception of depression and disability.
Second, let us assume for the sake of argument that he genuinely did wish to die. How did he come to have such a wish? When someone is completely dependent on another person, as Huntington was on Alice, it is incredibly easy for the dependent person to adopt their caretaker's opinions. It is a psychological defense tactic, and it is the same mechanism that produces Stockholm Syndrome. This extends even to suicide. If the "caretaker" wishes the dependent person to be dead, the dependent person will often passively accept their "caretaker's" wishes. (I use scare quotes here because if someone wants you dead or believes you would be better off dead, the level of care is often ... minimal, if not actively neglectful or abusive.) If they can get to someplace safer, though, where they are not told through word and actions that they should be dead and would be better off dead, their opinions on the subject often change DRAMATICALLY. Even staying with the same primary caregiver but having more social contact with the wider world can be enough to work such change.
So the idea that Huntington was suicidal himself is not the mitigating factor you imagine it to be.
I really don't know what the answer is.
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Date: 2019-09-06 08:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 12:57 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2019-09-06 08:26 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 12:58 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2019-09-06 09:57 pm (UTC)From:(This is complicated! Not only in the circumstances of Sheldon's final acts, but nearly everyone is discussing it with nuance and in good faith. There are truly no villains here.)
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Date: 2019-09-07 12:59 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 12:17 am (UTC)From:I think it will be probably impossible to tell from the outside and in retrospect whether their deaths were a truly mutual decision that they made as partners in a situation that seems to have wearing down both of them over a long time, and she genuinely executed their shared will, or whether she was at fault for fostering or creating his suicidal wishes. Or even her being somehow truly monstrous inside, rather than it all being tragic.
I do think it counts for something that apparently nobody who knew them more closely doubted that it was a mutual wish, even if we need to be mindful how our ableist society may be coloring people's views. I'm inclined to believe that she wasn't intentionally manipulating her husband to feel suicidal or desired such total control, where the murderer in a murder-suicide sees the victim only as extension of themselves, or similar abhorent scenarios.
I mean, I am quite uneasy with assisted suicide even with doctors and evaluation procedures involved, because I do see the danger of a slippery slope that reinforces the view of old, sick and disabled people as "burden", and that potentially makes good support and hospice care less available. (And to offer medical suicide for persistent, untreatable depression really disturbs me.)
So I don't think acting on even a mutual suicide pact is great, but then I'm not in their place and not ready to judge their personal tragedy and her guilt either. (Campbell's work otoh is quite knowable and a public thing.)
And that does make it not particularly urgent for me to see the Tiptree award renamed. But in general prefer award names that just symbolize their purpose somehow, or that are just made up and then come to symbolize it, rather than name them after people, who inevitably are messy and ultimately not actually the embodiment of something.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 01:04 am (UTC)From:The solution is not killing disabled people, the solution is making the lives of disabled people better, with better care options.
I still go back and forth on the question of the award's name, thought.
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Date: 2019-09-07 07:55 am (UTC)From:My step sister feels that fear very strongly bfor herself, said that she made arrangements to be killed rather than get any supportive care, which I'm not going to argue with her for herself, but she kept pushing and pushing that view at our father as his health was declining, while my full siblings and I were trying to get him to accept things like physical therapy after hospitalizations to recover more, and more in home care too, and then we'd kept finding fucking brochures from assisted suicide organizations in his bedroom. And when we confronted her, she was claiming that it was all about "respecting his wishes". Once I happened to sit in the metro with her, and she talked at me for ages how it would be "better" if he just died, and that she would want to die in his position, and she didn't even understand when I told her, well I wouldn't want to die in his position. After his death she even said it would have been better if he never got his pacemaker because it had just prolonged his old age, and I was aghast, because that was years earlier, before he even needed any care beyond housecleaning (which he just never did anyway) and he would never have had a chance to even meet his grandchildren without that pacemaker. I mean, shortly before his death he had got it turned off because it was just uselessly shocking him at that point of his heart failure, but it had done years of service by then.
And I just can't with those views. It was just so toxic to have pushed during what was such a hard time anyway. I still don't know if maybe he could have had a bit longer if he had been open to more support and rehabilitation earlier in his health decline, but at least he didn't outright commit suicide.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 08:54 pm (UTC)From:Thank you so much for putting my discomfort into words.
Date: 2019-09-07 04:14 pm (UTC)From:You've captured the complexities.
That Tiptree was a persona is an important part of why the award has that name. I don't want to disconnect from feminist sff history.
Ideally, name awards for goals/accomplishments, not people.
How can the Tiptree name be disconnected from Sheldon's later actions?
Re: Thank you so much for putting my discomfort into words.
Date: 2019-09-07 08:59 pm (UTC)From:I don't know if the name can be disconnected from Sheldon's actions; I would like it to be possible, but I don't know if it can. I know it's different from the Campbell situation because as I noted in my post, Campbell put every bit of his horribleness into his work and used his power and position to normalize it as much as he could. Tiptree was in a position of less power to begin with, and didn't advocate for ableism and eugenics in her work. If that's enough of a difference ... I don't know.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 06:54 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 08:59 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 02:18 am (UTC)From:What troubles me in this particular situation is that - partly because this all took place before the era where such matters could be discussed openly - we never heard directly from Sheldon's husband. All we have is reports from friends and family. And that does leave room for, at the very least, misunderstanding by the friends and family.
Moreover, while I don't think a desire to die rather than suffer is necessarily a sign of mental illness, there does seem to be some evidence in this case that Alice Sheldon was suffering from intense distress that might have disordered her mind. So I'm inclined to regard what happened as a tragedy for both parties.
As for the vexed question of how this relates to the naming issue: If I understand correctly the gist of the statement you linked to, the Tiptree Award folks are arguing that, just as "Astounding" (the new name of the Best New Writer award) was a magazine that didn't belong exclusively to Campbell, so too "Tiptree" ended up being a concept that didn't belong exclusively to Sheldon - it became something much bigger than the original creator, I suppose in the same way as Sherlock Holmes went beyond being simply a creation of Conan Doyle. And as a fanfic reader, I take that argument very seriously.
Mainly, though, I agree heartily with what you said earlier: "It's a thorny issue, and no mistake."
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Date: 2019-09-09 02:28 am (UTC)From:I just ... there's no good answer. The situation with Campbell was a lot easier.
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Date: 2019-09-08 01:37 pm (UTC)From:Personally, I don't think that Huntington supposedly wanting it is justification enough - my grandmother has been making comments about wanting to die for several years now, that doesn't mean I have the right to go put strychnine in her tea. Murder is murder.
And more than that - and the more relevant thing, I think - is what kind of message keeping her name on the award sends to disabled people in particular. And just for that I'd want the award to be renamed.
But like you said. It's definitely a thornier issue than Campbell.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-09 02:29 am (UTC)From:Good way of putting it.
On the other hand, pretty much everybody who knew anything about Campbell knew what a horrible person he could be about race and gender and authority, because it was a huge part of his role in the SF/F community. It's possible to be a huge Tiptree fan and not know anything about how she killed herself and her disabled husband. A lot of people (including myself) had never known about the murder/suicide before this discussion started. It's a lot less clear a message than having awards named after Campbell.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-12 02:38 am (UTC)From: